Telvu's Dusk 1: The Prodigal Daughter
by fiyahsterterz
Summary: An insight into Kaireni Telvu's background,a nd the first of the Telvu Dusk series. Please review, especially if you see any anomalies with Morrowind lore!


Telvu's Dusk Part 1: The Prodigal Daughter

Kaireni280 years old. Been dead for ten years.

Telvu's Dusk Part 1: The Prodigal Daughter

It was a humid, close night, which roused an uncomfortable sweat on all those that ventured into it. There was something lurking in the air, a forbidding presence that loomed over Sadrith Mora like a dark cloud, though the velvet sky was clear, and stars dotted it like diamonds. The denizens of the Telvanni council seat locked themselves in their homes, for being Telvanni and magickally gifted, they knew that tonight was not a night for roaming. Tel Naga, standing guard over the city, glimmered with energy, completely covered in the mild ice spell that Master Neloth had cast over it for the comfort of his vassals within.

One of these vassals sat alone in his chamber, poring over his books of Destruction though the hour was late. Llandrus Telvu was old even for a Dunmer, at the grand age of three centuries and twenty years. His blue skin was now greyish and papery, the eyes that had once burned crimson now watery and nearly blind. However, despite his age, he was still a powerful sorcerer, one of Neloth's trusted advisers. His wife, Elviru, was absorbed in her own studies on the other side of the room, surrounded by scrolls of Illusion. The old couple barely spoke anymore, and only shared a bed to sleep in. Elviru had never forgiven Llandrus for casting out their daughter two hundred and sixty years ago, and he had never forgiven his wife for sleeping with a vampire, the reason he had disowned young Kaireni. Born with strange powers thanks to her mother's affair, in Llandrus' eyes, she was as much an abomination as the vampire. As a Temple devout, he would not stand for such things in his family.

With a grunt of interest, he placed a feather in his book to hold the page and scribbled down a few notes on the parchment beside him.

"An interesting theory, that. Longer duration, as opposed to intensity, for a more lethal spell? I shall have to cross-reference."

Shooting an irritated glare at him, Elviru lifted a scroll to add a note to the parchment under it. Written on the parchment was a powerful Illusion spell, intended to make her completely unrecognisable when she slipped out of Tel Naga to the city's Morag Tong base. She had endured Llandrus for far too long, so tonight, she would buy the services of an assassin and do away with him once and for all. It would not do to have anyone recognise her carrying out such a scandalous deed.

Little did she know that absorbed in his own studies, Llandrus was working on a Destruction spell to kill her without an assassin's services and hefty fee. He was considering Aryon's theory of longer duration rather than high intensity. It would certainly serve his purposes of delivering a quiet, gradual death to his hated, necrophiliac wife as she slept. He would make sure she was cremated, so her vampire lover could not reclaim her after death.

As this elderly couple schemed into their books, a cloaked figure stood at the base of Tel Naga, staring up at their lighted window. Its race and gender were indiscernible under the billowing black wolf-hide cape, but its malevolence was clear. A storm was building, now, and black clouds were creeping across the sky, swallowing the stars one by one. The air was growing heavier and ever more damp and humid. Tel Naga shimmered as Neloth upped the ice spell's intensity. Suddenly, a fork of lightning seared through the sky with a tortured screech and exploded into the tower's top. The whole of the organic tower began to writhe in reaction, and as the ice spell flashed back through Tel Naga to its origin in Neloth's tower, every light went out as the retreating spell extinguished the fires.

Llandrus clung to the spongy, pitted wall as the room moved and shook. Elviru screamed and collapsed with her hands over her head. She was invisible to her husband in the darkness, and he could not see her as her breathing became laboured and she struggled to draw in air. A searing pain shot through her chest, and she fell still. All Llandrus knew of this was how her limbs suddenly stopped beating against the floor. The tower's movement slowly became sluggish, and then stopped, leaving the Telvanni mage shaken and confused. He had known such a reaction only once before, and this had been when Neloth battled the previous Lord of Tel Naga and used a huge lightning spell to defeat him, inadvertently attacking the tower. What could be attacking the tower now? Cautiously, Llandrus shuffled over to his wife's desk, tripping over something on the way, and picked up a scroll of Starlight, casting it to softly illuminate the room. He had his back to the door, so he could take in the entire room, and it was in chaos. Books littered the whole chamber, and some had been completely destroyed, scattered pages like snow over the rest of the mess. Among that mess was his wife's prone form. Llandrus regarded her with detached curiosity. How had that happened? Well, it saved him the trouble of killing her. He moved forward to cover her with a fallen tapestry, and suddenly heard the unmistakeable sound of tearing paper behind him. By the time he had turned to face the sound, five more pages had been ripped out of his beloved _Collected Theories of the Destructive Arts_, and a cloaked figure stood in the doorway holding the huge guarhide-bound tome in one hand and the removed pages in the other. Letting out a strangled cry of grief, Llandrus took a step towards the stranger.

"My book! My book! What are you doing, you heathen?!"

The cloaked figure grabbed a handful of pages and ripped them out, scattering them at Llandrus' feet. He lunged at her, fires sparking at his fingertips, and was pushed away with brutal strength, sending him sprawling on the floor. The book ignited, and the stranger threw its flaming parts around the chamber, setting various tomes and items of furniture alight. The room grew larger as the living walls moved away from the fire. Llandrus looked into the cowl's darkness in horror.

"Are you unhinged?! Explain yourself, now!"

"You have owed me an explanation for centuries, and I think it's about time you revealed the reason for your cruelty… Father."

The black cloak was cast aside, and Llandrus found himself gazing up at a slender, shapely Dunmer woman. She wore figure-hugging, low-cut crimson robes and an immense ruby at her throat that glittered unnaturally. Her long, shining, gently curling white hair fell midway down her back, partly covering the sheathed Daedric sword she wore there. Finally, Llandrus forced himself to look into her face, knowing her would see his daughter staring back at him. But those pale blue cheeks, once soft and rounded, were gaunt, and those full lips an unnatural dark red. Her face was longer, sharper, predatory in its beauty. Llandrus looked into her eyes, and where they had been red, they were white, pure white, vampire white. She smiled coldly, and long, white fangs slid out over her bottom lip.

"Vampire!" He tried to scream a warning, but Kaireni Telvu was upon him before he could even blink, a gloved hand covering his mouth and gripping his jaw so hard he thought it would crack.

"So… Father. Why did you cast me out, take my mother and heritage away from me? Why did you deny what was mine, what IS mine? Father? You have some questions to answer."

She removed her hand from his mouth, and cast a soundproof ward over the room.

"Speak."

"Kaireni? It's you? No, it isn't you! There is no Kaireni Telvu! There may be Kaireni Aundae or Berne or Quarra or whatever cursed clan you call family, but kaireni Telvu is dead, and has been for centuries! No, she never lived!"

Kaireni punched him in the nose. It broke with a disgusting crack, and blood flowed freely, but Llandrus knew his daughter wasn't using her full strength. Her eyes flickered to the blood on his face, but she drew them away and back into his.

"She lived. She died. She stands before you now, and demands the knowledge that is hers."

"Fine. I had a daughter. I had a wife, and I loved her dearly. She was beautiful, and intelligent, and of noble Telvanni blood, and perfect for me. But she obviously didn't think the same of me, because she chose to open her perfect legs for a heretic corpse, an abomination, the filthy necrophile."

"A corpse?"

"A VAMPIRE. One of YOUR kind."

He spat, and Kaireni nimbly stepped aside to avoid the flying saliva.

"I didn't know. I thought she kept leaving the tower to visit a friend in the Mages' Guild and compare research. But no, she was stealing into some cursed tomb to visit her unholy lover. Eventually, she got with child. Of course, it was mine. The vampire's seed was dead. But she kept visiting him, even while pregnant, and he did something to the precious child growing inside her. Something evil. He gave her some of his dark powers, some of his curse. So my lovely daughter was born with a vampire's blood inside her, as if he were her third parent. I was unaware of Elviru's infidelity, and unaware that my daughter was an evil creature's spawn. I raised her with love for two decades, until she grew into a beautiful young woman, with mine and her mother's talents combined, and more besides."

"I never wondered where these powers had come from, until one night, Master Neloth had a feast, and my wife drank far too much flin. Drunk, she refused to come to bed with me, and told me that I could not compare to her vampire lover, and that in the morning, she would go to the Vannir tomb to spend eternity with him. She fell unconscious eventually, and the next morning, I visited the Temple and led a party of Ordinators to the Vannir Ancestral Tomb. We found the heretic bastard and his undead harem, and we staked him through his black heart and chopped him into guar fodder, him and all his wretched followers. I told Elviru what had happened to her lover, and when my beloved, vampire-spawn daughter returned home from her pilgrimage to Molag Mar, I cast her out. And now here you are. He was your true father, for you are no daughter of mine, you undead fiend!"

He made to grab Kaireni's throat, but she ripped off his forearm, leaving him staring dumbstruck at the bloody stump of his elbow.

"That was the day I lost faith in the Tribunal. It seems they never had faith in me. You may not consider yourself my father, but you are, and I have come to claim my inheritance. I don't care about money, or family spells, or land, and certainly not this cramped chamber you call home. I will settle for your life. So, what is more effective, Father? A drawn-out, low intensity shock spell, or one short sharp bolt to give you a merciful end? A fast death would be too kind."

She raised a gloved hand, and touched his forehead, that tiny brushing of glove to skin sending agonising pain through his nerves. He was writhing and spasming on the floor, shrieking in agony, and Kaireni watched her father dying with no emotion but satisfaction on her lovely dead face. He crawled to her, mouthing silent pleas for mercy, but she stepped away, watching him gyrate like a fish out of water. It was a long, drawn-out death; Llandrus Telvu was in that terrible agony for twenty long minutes before he finally expired.

When he had finally died, Kaireni Telvu spat on his corpse, and then moved across to her mother's body. Gently stroking Elviru's face, Kaireni pulled a vial of black ash out of her cloak, and moved the hand to her mother's chest. The body disappeared in crimson flames, eventually leaving behind the usual white ashes of a mortal. Kaireni scooped these up and mixed them with her vampire father's black remains, and walking to the window, flung the delicate grey ashes over Sadrith Mora, watching them scatter on the wind. The horizon was lightening now, and dawn was close. Kaireni clasped her hands together and became a bat as she jumped out of the window, flying away over the city towards the Vannir Ancestral Tomb, which she now called home.

When she arrived, she stood still and silent after closing the door behind her, musing on the revenge she had finally achieved. Though the darkness would be impenetrable to mortal eyes, she saw her beloved vampiric child, Adunai Gothrayn, approaching. His perfect, sensuous face mirrored the expression of sorrowful reflection on her own, and she embraced him tightly, kissing him on the neck. Close behind him were her thralls and blood-givers, Mossanon and Midar, and they too joined the embrace, enveloping their undead queen in their living warmth. Adunai broke away, and lifting Kaireni's chin, kissed her gently on the lips.

"Come to bed, my love. Let us make you forget."


End file.
